Linkmeister

Who's your daddy?

Lemme get this straight. The Immigration Service demolished nearly 1,300 lives just to spur Congress to do something about immigration reform? Ostensibly this was an attempt to capture people who had committed identity theft, but only 65 of the 1,282 rounded up have been charged.

This week's raids on Swift & Co. meatpacking plants are manifestations of a Bush administration strategy to wield new legal tactics against illegal workers, while pressing Congress for immigration reforms.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday that the government hopes that criminally prosecuting workers who allegedly use stolen identities will spur Congress to act, and send a message across America's borders.

"I'm hoping this is going to ... be a deterrent to illegal workers, (and) cause them to say that, you know, this happened in Swift, it could easily happen somewhere else," Chertoff said. "In fact, I'm pretty much going to guarantee we're going to keep bringing these cases."

[snip]

Chertoff said Congress needs to act on a comprehensive strategy to provide safeguards against the use of forged or stolen identities: the introduction of forgery-proof identity cards, a temporary-worker program and other reforms.

You know, that's about as cynical and unworthy a motive as I can imagine. A number of children whose parents may be deported have now effectively become orphans; let's not forget that if those kids were born in this country they're US citizens. So what now? Are they going to be dumped into Family Services in each one of those states?

This is Bush's compassionate conservativism, huh?